What It's REALLY Like To EXPLORE In Starfield!
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- čas přidán 3. 09. 2023
- Does exploration just work in Starfield? The answer is yes, but not in the way many people might have expected. Starfield's planet surfaces then, contain a whole variety of interesting activities, and adventures to follow.
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#starfield - Hry
Right click your mouse to charge your cutter for mining. you will see the inner reticle move to the centre once charge its a lot quicker mining.
OMG I didn't even think of trying that! Thanks for your post!
Also, paint your jet-pack red.
Red makes it go faster!
Console controls?
My favorite random encounter so far is while quantum driving to a side quest objective I ran into a random ship in space and the pilot started singing “space shanty” over the comms. When you hail the ship the dude just says he want to bring happiness to people and he warps out.
lol yea i heard him too on my passthrough i didnt hail him tho. i just said thats nice and bounced!
@@underleft Haha. Also, just a few hours ago I ran into a ship that purely exists to crack a Uranus joke. Lol
That just happened to me. That ship was called the "Valentine"
I get what Todd Howard meant when he said the game did exploration different. I think it does work but I don't think it meets what most people had/have anticipated
People anticipate all kinds of bs when it comes to new games - even if it was shown clearly what to expect. There is no pleasing entitled gamers. If they would have put long spaceflight in, people would complain it's too boring. If they don't have it, people complain about that etc. It's actually pretty stupid. I played for 36 hours and loved every minute of it. Is the game perfect? Nope. But most of what ppl are complaining about, I learned through reading comments lol.
A lot of gamers can't just accept a game as is.
@@jean-lucpicard581 exactly right, I played Elite for yrs and stayed out in the black. The time spent traveling was the worst aspect of exploration, so I understood why Bethesda did what they did b/c you are absolutely right, if SF took the Elite Dangerous approach to travel, people would absolutely be crying about it b/c that type of gameplay isn't for most people
Sorry but this just isn't true. Bethesda did not show that the game has hard invisible walls, or boundaries on the tiles, or that you cannot seamlessly traverse planets. They vaguely led people on thinking that the traversal system was similar to ED, NMS or SC, and that just wasn't true. @@jean-lucpicard581
@@mandalore41 True. I've been playing ED for years, always missing something like jump autopilot.
Travel time in ED spent IRL is literally a waste of time - there is nothing else to do, just waiting for the jump to complete, honk and go. Most of the time it's very same. It just sucks.
Not speaking about travelling to a far station. I remember I spent IRL 30 minutes to get to a station for something I needed, but it was ~ 120kLy.
@@AlesStibal I feel ED would be a better game if it was a Single player, with a main story and side quests. Being multiplayer, it feels dead.
I've been playing Starfield for more than 15 hours now and I've enjoyed it very much so far. I'm playing it as any other Bethesda game. Running around and getting distracted by exploration, side quests and whatever gets my attention.
Me too spent at least 4 hours getting distracted by engaging side quests before heading back to my main quest
Just playing it as it unfolds for your character, seems to be how they intended; it's jaw-dropping how much randomized and procedural content pops up, and so many of the scripted side-quests are so well voice acted, with interesting story elements, that almost all missions feel of the same quality to me.
Same here, taking it slow.
@freighttrain7143 IKR it's kind of mind boggling how huge the game is...
Why does it sound like your justifying your playtime? Let’s face it, the game is disappointing woke garbage
Landed on a random planet only looking for resources today and found a gorgeous huge map with hot springs, quakes, an abandoned robot facility, marines being trained and a civilian outpost and still more to uncover. I think it’s insane how well everything worked and it didn’t feel empty while still capturing the vastness of a uninhabitable planet.
vastness ? u are limited by invisible walls, sooner or later
try exploring earth
@@Dar1uszand how far do you explore other planets away from your ship looking for people to kill and sites to loot?
@@Dar1usz Who cares? There is enough to do.
If you in stead of playing the game go completely stupid walking in a straight line ignoring all activities and interesting locations, then you won't have much fun. It's like playing a racing game by taking a slow walk around the parkour, and then complaining it's not exiting or fun...
people who been lied by todd howards@@jclosed2516
People complaining this isn't a space game are out of their minds, or haven't played the game.
I landed on some random moon this morning and watched the sun rise with Jupiter in the background. As i was sitting there, with Inon Zur's fantastic score swelling in the background, it took me back to my younger years sneaking around Skyrim under the aurora borealis. I didn't care that I had to sit through a loading screen to get there. In that little moment, I really felt like I was an explorer, alone, lost in space. That is what Todd was trying to achieve and all I can do is tip my hat. Absolutely nailed it.
I understand you like the game and don't have an issue with how things are set up in the game. Its your full right but other people who I know have played the game have full right to complain, especially when they payed a good deal for the game. I have a friend who even paid to upgrade his pc for the game and is so far very disappointed. It is not like this game was free or very cheap. People paid money. Some bought into hype of misconceptions of how travel and exploration is. Yes I have not played the game yet. I have not bought it yet. I have not complained nor praised. I am just listening to various points of views. So I like people who have differing points of views, dislikes and likes. It helps me have a better understanding and grasp of the game before I pay for the game. For me how exploration is done and how much freedom space flight has with the ability to have a crew is a big influence if I want to buy this game or not. The idea of loading screens is a point down for me. I don't mind screen transitions but the ability to launch my ship into space and land it on my own is something I like. Can I live without it perhaps. So once more I like differing opinions of why people like it or find bad about it.
@@arakuss1 the game not having those feature that u mention is alredy mention in some interview, it is not something bethesda keep secret.
The lack of surface vehicles is probably the biggest turn-off for me, but I'm certain people will mod them in.
With the grid system they have to load more grids at a time for vehicles to make sense. Consoles are limiting the experience especially because of the series s. On pc there should be the option to get vehicles.
@@starscream6629 the tiles are 8km wide and 10 km height approx, it think its more than enough space for a vehicle, considering how cp2077's map is just 11km
unless Bethesda adds them, mods can't do shit, even if by some miracle mods make land vehicles, theyll be janky af
You got jackpack, just use it for horizontal momentum instead of vertical. Make much more sense than vehicle in sci fi setting.
To do what? Crash into the invisible walls of your cube faster?
I like this type of exploration. It appears that you if you take the time, you could spend a lot of time on one planet finding new quests, resources, and situations that aren't scripted. That's a game for me.
I had to do a mission twice becauae of a crash, the 2nd time around had different interactions and ways to complete. I am sold
Yeah - that does look promising. As long as it doesn't become too repetitive in what you find or situation scripts.
I really made some awesome screenshots of biomes the biomes in this game are AMAZING., BTW i have removed the invisible wall via a mod :) works great, i wonder also if we can also build these props that you see in other bases not the standard base building buildings., i have also seen Lava lakes on a moon its amazing, and Earthquakes man the whole screen shook lmao
@raygrimes9203 lol I crashed because an enemy ship I boarded flew into space and started combat with another. During all of this I'm fighting the crew and the game crashes and a UC ship blows us all up. That shit had me cracking up. Also the parents in this game can crack you up sometimes as well, I thought their role would be far more basic lol
@@nemesisone8927 Curious what the remove invisible walls mod actually does. What is its mechanic?
The first random stop I made was on the moon near New Atlantis. I just picked a blank spot on the map and said "land". Off in the far distance was a weapons manufacturing plant. The companion said, "I had no idea something this large was out here, it could support a fleet!" After dispatching the pirates roaming about there was a terminal with communications between them and some other location talking about a shipment waiting at a nearby system. Next time I'm on, I'm heading there. For me, this kind of exploration is just what I hoped for. Aimless wandering, not knowing what something is at a glance, and finding something that results in further exploration to somewhere I haven't been. The fact none of it would've happened if I hadn't wanted to land, hadn't cleaned the pirates out, AND hadn't spent time looking at screens, etc. makes it all the more rewarding for the effort.
@@underleft Exactly, and I don't doubt a lot of the sites are pre-made and reused. As long as the loot isn't, well, it's no different than a lot of other looter type games out there. No matter how big their team was for creating such things it'll be thousands of modders that will be able to fill the planets with variety. Modded Skyrim can get almost unrecognizable. I'm really anticipating what people can come up with for Starfield, too!
I ignore most of the fast travel stuff, but even if you do the sense of “traveling” through space feels a bit too limited. It still just feels like mostly magically appearing in places and then maybe flying a few seconds to a station or ship.
The way I see it id this is what I wanted destiny to be with its loading screens. Just the option for space battles
The fast travel stuff is what I wanted to be gameplay.
I think the landing/taking off being manual would have added a lot of immersion, but the grav jumping definitely seems necessary just due to the vastness of everything
@@Degenevestingplay Everspace 2 instead
It's hilarious seeing everything that people complained about in ED for years, now Starfield is bad because it doesn't have that.
I feel it's just people looking to signal their status as space game 'purists' (whatever that is). Like they won't get out of bed without seamless planetary landings. A kind of space-game master-race.
I am not into ED but curious - what is it that people complained about?
@@nighttrain1236 - Some people have higher standards than others.
@@rmac4612 Travel in ED can be extremely tedious, since from what I recall there's no fast travel system you could spend entire play sessions just trying to reach a single destination you need to get to, when I used to play I remember I had to travel to an orbital station and upon entering the system it would take me around 20 minutes just to get to the station and it was a round trip mission so you could imagine how mind numbing it would get.
Im not even into RPG single player games, but Starfield im enjoying a lot
Loving it so far - exploration is very addicting in this game. Despite the fact that landing sites on planets are instances or chunks, those areas are huge! I normally try to finish a mission and then go explore on my way back to the ship. There are times those side-paddles took me 3-4 hours because I was chasing one random event / landmark after the other. Always something new to see, sometimes this leads to mini-quests. The level of detail of interior environments is just mind-boggling. It is crazy how much (high detailed) junk, trash and objects inside of buildings are. And more crazy is, that the physics most of the time really work on every object - depending of the planets / moon gravity.
@@alexwalters35the game becomes unstable when you go beyond the existing barriers. Likely due to some distance related bug so they make you reland to reset the origin.
@@alexwalters35bruh they did it for a reason… I’m sure removing it will cause problems 🤷🏻♂️
They give you no reason to want to explore.. generic ,boring empty world filled with boring outposts.. and boring caves
@@PaulybiGGballZ0820 I doubt people are putting in 100s of hours because it’s a boring game lol I already have about 60 and I can’t get enough 🤷🏻♂️
I don’t expect it to be elite like for space exploration but It feels like a game with a space setting rather than a space focused game where you can actually “explore” space.
yep pretty spot on ... the space portions are largely just for a few dogfight missions and just getting from one place to another... and i think that's by design... which im ok with surprisingly....
It's an rpg set on many planets, rather than a space sim
I seem to be enjoying it more. Today I found a really cool cave on a moon, captured a huge ship and jumped into a battle between pirates and the navy. Helped the navy and got a reward and then spend 10 mins collecting all the loot from the destroyed ships. it's far from perfect but it is a fun game.
It really is funny... so many things I thought I would be furious about actually dont add anything to the game experience and become unnecessary tedium. I love how streemlined things are and it really does work! I can actually play in short stretches and feel like I've accomplished something unlike so many games this gets compared to.
This is the most underrated comment. Time matters to many of us. I've been playing NMS while waiting for the 6th, keeping in mind I maybe have an hour or two at most right now, I feel like I'm wasting my gaming time just pulsing to a distant planet that takes 45 seconds. I used to love that and I guess I'll miss atmospheric flight or even a speeder type vehicle in Starfield, but really most of the stuff people are complaining about is personally a plus for me.
I'm 60+ hours played, doing a mix of everything, and just loving it, I never did expect a space sim and it's exactly what I expected, Fallout with space setting, but this is incredible, in that 60 hours only 1 mission used a duplicate "base" so far, and I'm good with that there is so much here to explore and some of the places are huge!
Damn, I can't even play the game more than an hour without it crashing and forcibly rebooting my computer
Bro, your ass is gonna stuff up. Try standing.
Thank you for showing this. I was getting the impression from others that the focus is shooting and looting. I'm glad that there are nonviolent options.
I know your comment is 13 days old now and you probably discover this for yourself but there are plenty, so many situations where you can use persuade instead of violence.
My experience with exploration has been quite similar. Recently found a derelict ship in space with nobody aboard and some notes about what happened to the people onboard. Got some nice loot, but couldn't claim the ship since it wasn't flyable.
One thing that took me a while to stumble across is that the cockpit of every ship has a captains locker that may have loot and has a screen to access the cargo hold without going through your character screen. (which you can't do unless you claim the ship) Look for a green display screen.
You can also transfer stuff too and from your ship if you're within a couple hundred meters. Makes it easy to unload excess loot.
Ive been playing since last Friday and I love the fact I not only can explore, but I also pulled into other misadventures along the way in the main questline.
Never played a Bethesda game before this so I came into it without any expectations (do have 1300 hours in ED). Done about 15 ish hours so far and really enjoying it
You never played Skyrim???
@@Kris.G nope. Couple of guys have said I should try it just never got round to it.
I remember a mod someone made to get rid of Geralt's post walk animation. It made the game so much better not having to wait every time for him to walk more forward than I wanted him too. Toggle options like that in games are fantastic. We all have different tastes.
That point about flying to Pluto and only finding a marker happens in Elite as well. I found two stars very close and travelled from one to the other in supercruise for a few hours and there was no star - only a marker.
@@underleft Yep.
@@underleftwe all know they're loading screens but they are hidden as they should be. It feels like you are the one travelling because of that.
I feel like this game has a lot of room to grow, either from Bethesda doing expansions and dlc over a few years, or when some really talented modders add a bunch of POIs. It honestly reminds me of 7 days to die earlier in its """early access""" life cycle, where there were only a couple dozen POIs that just got spammed in every town. Now, and especially if use Subquake's Undead Legacy mod, 7 Days is way more fleshed out and there are many, many more POI types.
If Bethesda adds more POIs for these maps and weighs the procedural generation so that populated worlds get more of a certain pool of POIs and unpopulated or barren worlds get a totally different set of POIs, then I think they can improve the balance between desolate rocks in the middle of nowhere and interesting nuggets of settlements or mini dungeons so that players feel more incentivized to explore and set up bases near interesting locations rather than just for resources or because that's just what you do.
Idk, I'm more excited for where the game is going rather than where it's at, but if I had the money for a new GPU and the game right now, I'd still probably buy it.
This game is like a huge sandbox. The more i play the my mind races thinking about what they could add. I cant wait to see what it will look like a few years from now. Hope you get to play it soon!
Wait so you haven’t even played the game?
ED will always hold a special place in my heart but it's just gotten so stale that we really needed something like this for a better space legs experience..
can't agree more o7
Yes - and we know Starfield will have space legs given the now almost legendary Bethseda Modding community.
I miss the ED from before "spacelegs". I would've played for years still.. But FDev had to go ruin it...
@@jazzdirtOdyssey killed Elite
@@shaycormac7224 nah, peoples expectations killed it. Oddyssey is a great addition to the game in my opinion. But they wasted potential with really bad "atmospheric" planet. I mean barren planets with some different skybox. If they were introduce planets with various weather and real atmospheres - this would be a winner alongside with real story driven quests.
A game with a title like *STARfield* I would expect to have *freedom* in spaceflight and perhaps also atmospheric flight! It's 23 years after *Starlancer* an excellent space sim with technical limitations of the year 2000...
This is what Star Citizen is missing, actually having lots of content and things to do on planets instead of just standing around and looking at the scenery.
I've been loving it so far. I've been doing so much questing on the main cities that I haven't really bothered with the barren planets. I'll explore some of them but the main reason I like this game is the RPG aspects. I'm hoping they improve the space exploration (maybe add a cruise drive for faster travels?) and the facial animations but the rest is very fun and addictive lol
I first found your channel watching videos of you describing your exploration adventures in Elite Dangerous. Really enjoyed listening to your account & I wouldn't mind seeing the occasional video of you describing your adventures/misadventures in Starfield.
Approaching 50 hours and I have yet to hit an invisible wall. My bags fill up long before then. at which point I go back to my ship to dump the loot and pick a different direction to explore... or just launch and land in a whole new spot/planet/system.
Not sure how you get oil on a moon, seems someone doesnt quite understand where oil comes from lol
I feel there is a way more interesting game in that subplot. Moon dinos? Sign me up.
The lead writer has no world building skills at all. Funny how the only culture in space is murica.
Hydrocarbons… liquid methane (or something similar) below the surface that freezes when it hits the vacuum of space.
There are a lot of things I would change about exploration in Starfield, but I think they did a great job. I'm still having fun after a dozen or so hours of playing.
The funniest thing is that the generation is identical to ARENA's generation! Arena too don't allow you to walk city to city but confined you to a limited area tile around a travel point, you had to fast travel to the next poi.
Modded POI variety and hand crafted lore heavy settlements with item persistence make the instanced system worth it. Seamless travel on harren planets is a purist ideal which most players would skip anyway.
Something that would be amazing , and I really mean it, because it's mostly npc/envirnoment auto-generated; they should make a mod that adds the new chatgpt ia , that would be really amazing. Npc would react naturally to their environment and talk to you with meaning. Maybe it will come one day , I wish.
Of course it will come, just give it some time (not too long I imagine)
Exploration is simply GENERIC through and through.
Aside from space, exploration is exactly what I was expecting. Being a console player, I loved ED's space exploration and haven't found a game that quite replicates that. NMS and Starfield have great planetary exploration in there own way and I am quite enjoying Starfield's version. Being without a map doesn't really bother me because it forces me to become familiar with the environments personally, and I feel more like an explorer of new worlds without it. I don't use fast travel in Bethesda games if I can avoid it. I found I couldn't properly enjoy Oblivion or Skyrim with it. For me, they made those worlds feel too small.
That frozen oil would be a big frozen puddle probably, if there is actual void, not some very low temperature atmosphere, void is actually good thermal insulator. So the liquid would lose most of its temperature via contact with surfaces.
Yep, things freeze really slowly in vacuum. Plus if that really is oil, it’s presence on an airless mood makes no sense.
@@ohthreefiftyone Oh come on - ruined the immersion for me! 0.0
@@ohthreefiftyone could be any kind of liquid.
Yep! I 100% agree with this video! I think a lot of people arent playing Starfield right. like They think that it's just Skyrim or Fallout in space and they should explore the same way. But it isn't like that at all. For example, on Kreet (the second planet after the tutorial), I went through clearing the research base and afterwards, I decided to explore the planet a little bit. I used the scanner, which indicated that a cave was nearby so I started walking out to go explore it. On the way, bounty hunters landed (because I have the wanted trait), although I hadn't seen their ship yet. They tried to kill me, but I beat them and took their stuff. I kept on walking and eventually I actually came across their ship, which had landed at a supply depot. I boarded the ship and killed the additional bounty hunters on board. I would have stolen the ship, but I couldn't due to it being a tutorial still. Otherwise, I could have stolen a new ship right at the start of the game! Instead, I opted for looting the ship's cargo hold and walked off with around 7,000 credits total. I also looted some rare components from the supply depot. I never got to the cave, because I ran into a Terrormorph at level 10 and was only level 2 so I couldn't kill it. I was also reaching the weight limit and just opted to return to the Frontier.
and this was just the second planet after the tutorial. Starfield absolutely has a ton of exploration, but you really need to use your scanner to find it. The cave and supply depot didn't show up on a planetary scan. I actually had to be on the ground for those locations to show up. I feel like not enough people are using the scanner to find places. They are playing it like Skyrim or Fallout where you can just walk in a direction and eventually find something, but that's not how Starfield works. There are random locations on nearly every planet, but you gotta use the scanner from orbit and on the ground to find them.
Is destroying the ship ( that you couldnt take ) an option - break it down further for parts i mean ?
Terramorphs! I am level 8, just about took out one, was no easy feat with it being a level 28. A lot of luck and usage of every single bullet I had. The more I play the more I enjoy
@@TrevorwiththreeVs I wish I don't think so though.
Good game! I'm enjoying it! Great videos as always!
I've played Starfield fow for about 6 hours now. At first I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't a mashup between fallout and no man's sky but I got over it fairly quickly when I realized it reminds me a lot of KOTOR spliced with fallout but bigger which I'm actually very happy about.
The fact I have to go to my inventory screen to jump to planets no longer bothers me and I enjoy the fact I can essentially fast travel if I'm not in the mood for running, which is handy on some of the more fetch type quests.
All in all I'm very happy and looking forward to exploring about the place and seeing what the main story is all about. I give it a solid 8/10 right now.
You can use your scanner to see locations on a planet much easier.
Yep!! I keep telling people this, because not enough folks are using the scanner. Unlike Fallout and Skyrim, you can't just walk to a random location and expect stuff to pop up. I mean eventually it probably will, but the scanner makes it easier and functions like the local map used to function in previous Bethesda games, except that it's integrated into the HUD.
If you haven't played SF yet, just a tip, it gets a LOT better the more you play. There's so much content in it. It's worth completing and rushing just to get to NG+.
I’ve been playing the game but I haven’t really came across much dungeons. Now to be fair I’ve just been doing mostly fetch quests within the cities but my question is how is dungeon verity? Are they huge?
the issue with that is that the majority of these people complaining dont have patience to play through enough of the game
@@pandagonerogue.140 You missed the black cave of the giant man eating cockroaches.
@@wolferr1 nah I found that one. Pretty creepy
Oh my this has made it a must buy now. Thanks for the effort man.
Great video, and thanks for avoiding spoilers, thanks.
So far as I'm playing I'm pretty pleased with the exploration system and FPS, but I think you could carry a little more items in your inventory...
Hey OA, the rock piles (like ya see at 9:45) are things you gather and not something ya shoot with the lazers; you gotta get out of the scanner mode and just use the E key to snag whatever that rock pile (or gas thingy) has. You've probably figured this out by now, but just in case I figure I'd mention it.
I love how there’s audio that reminds me of Skyrim, like discovering new areas or levelling up. Loving it so far.
You've encapsulated exactly what I'm looking forward to. I love Bethesda's environmental storytelling, and have been hearing off my best mate aswell(who bought me a Series X and Starfield, alongside other related goodies lol) about the attention to detail in the world, and how good it is to explore.
I'm due to get my copy on Wednesday or Thursday. It has apparently dispatched, so fingers crossed that Royal Mail pull their fingers out. 🤣
o7
I did some random exploring on the first planet you fly to after boarding the Frontier at one of the random sites I checked out I got the Dataslate with the Mantis side mission so that was great.
I discovered everything last night! Literally as I was flying to that marker I was thinking to myself if they added some sort of super hero figure like they did in fallout 4 and to my surprise that was exactly what I was hoping for lol
Looks all quite good and interesting to me.
Glad to see that even the lifeless planets can be very interesting.
They really can, its dope.
Nice, it’s pretty much what I was expecting. Very cool. I will start my journey tomorrow-ish
I just wish they had immersion styled cutscenes to keep the player in the game.. im ok with fast travel. Don’t feel like going around the whole planet. But I would love to see that ur ship would have todo something with the radius of the player. Maybe oxygen levels go lower the farther u leave ur ship! Maybe u can upgrade the radius just a bit more. Like these types of things would help a lot.
Instead of a text that pops up saying “border ahead” or “turn back”
Like why cant we have something saying
“Captain, ur O2 levels are lowering.. ur going to far from you’re ship. Get closer to it immediately or u will die”
Will have to see come release. But theres no denying the lack of seamless travel is rather underwhelming, but judging by the games fidelity compared to the likes of NMS and ED some sacrifices would have had to be made.
I spent my first 10 hours just landing in different places and I’ve enjoyed the variety of seeded stuff. I found a legendary helmet and a a few epic pieces just landing randomly. For a game like this it’s a ton of fun and I like the way they did this. So much potential. As a SC player, this scratches an itch we won’t have in SC for another 5 years.
" ... this scratches an itch we won’t have in SC for another 5 years."
lol, gotta love the optimism :)
Won't have in SC ever*
I randomly went to an industrial site and found just 2 people walking around this enormous structure, I killed them (obviously) and then noticed they had a massive hauler parked up. I digipicked the door, stole the shio and now i have a huge hauler with loads of cargo. Exploration CAN be rewarding. I love this game.
For me, “exploration” is finding a really cool place, and being able to go back to it days, weeks later and it being exactly the same. And perhaps even sharing that location with a friend, and them being able to see exactly the same location as I did.
And unfortunately, the vast majority of planets in Starfield don’t meet that criteria as their landable areas are randomly generated “on the fly”, therefore unique to each player.
Man I love the way you approached everything, this should be shown to everyone who hasnt played an exploration game.
I am liking the game. I would say go into it expecting mass effect rather than no man's sky and you'll be happy.
A no man's sky approach to entering atmosphere and exploration would have been amazing. Imagine being chased to a planet during combat and either shooting right back into space or bailing out of your ship and continuing on foot. That's what I thought we were getting.
Ironically if you'd combine Elite Dangerous and Starfield you'd have the most perfect spacegame ever.
The exploration is jus5 amazing in starfield. Just love it. There is always something cool to find. Landing randomly on a planet and just explore is amazing. Love it.
This is an awesome game, really liking it, explorations is very interesting.
I wish they add manual flying on the planet , more like Kerbal space program.That would be something
Or at least the option to do so. I guess it was a bridge too far programming wise.
This is all valid, and great fun and feels like a real open "limitless" galaxy the first 20 or so hours you explore (which is a microscopical drop in the bucket of time in a Bethesda game). But once you see the exact (not stitched together with proc gen, but literally exact copy/pasted) same outpost, with the same containers, and same notes on the tables/computers, and same loot, and same npc spawns etc., it really takes you out of the exploration loop.
Its crazy how they they made 1000 planets, but maybe only a few dozen repetitive copy/pasted POIs across the entire galaxy.
They should have either:
- Spent more dev time making more hand crafted POIs
or
- Used actual proc gen to stitch together different layouts of caves/outposts to randomize them
or
- Shrunk the world down to like 3-5 solar systems and did everything handcrafted
It is a good game, but exploration is as wide as an ocean and as deep as a puddle. If you don't want to shatter the illusion of the game being very shallow on the exploration front, you have to stick with the handcrafted unique/story/side quest content. This is a shame, because it goes against what Bethesda RPGs are usually known for, and also goes against the very marketing they used for Starfield being the ultimate space exploration game.
That is exciting!! Seeing a tower and going to check it out - that's a great feeling.
Starfield sounds like it has all the things I wanted in Elite except Fuel Rats
Looks good so far, you've described the sort of exporation that I always liked with the fallout series so am looking forward this. One observation from the distances your traversing on a planetary body I'm going miss my SRV by the sounds of it.
One wonders if they'll make DLC of it.
But it’s not the same at all as Fallot. In Fallout you can walk from Diamond City to some other location and have a random encounter like a space ship crashing or the voice of a kid trapped in a refrigerator.
In Starfield you can just explore the areas around cities. You can’t explore on your journey.
Yup it needs you upgrading your boost back pack
@@svendtang5432 Yup. The boost pack is awesome.
@@GizmoMaltese There are random encounters in Starfield though, enemies will randomly land near you every now and then and you could stumble upon a firefight, there are also crashed ships and skeletons, and various random things scattered about. It's just not as compressed as Fallout.
Thx for going the extra mile to show this.
You claim that markers are black and once you reach the destination they turn white, while this is technically true, if you highlight the marker with your scanner and then press A (Xbox) this will reveal the marker as white and give a clearer picture of what that area is.
This is especially helpful for those that are trying to find planet traits, as there is a particular icon that appears and shows a trait is at that location. This took me almost 30 hours to discover and it’s massively cut down on the running required when searching for traits or specific locations.
I agree Ant, this was never intended to be a space ‘sim’..I have no idea why people think it should be as fully realised as something like ED
All I can say is, with well over 1000 hours in both elite dangerous no mans sky, and close to 800 in SC, I absolutely love this game. Im very glad for many aspects of the fast travel system, especially when completing quests and especially in an RPG...In my opinion, the planet side content is better than the aforementioned, I also enjoy the space ship content, even though it's very limited compared to the aforementioned. Maybe it's because my expectations were tempered before launch? Sucks that theres a big chunk of the community that feels frustrated, which points to Bethesda setting the wrong expectations for a lot of consumers....if thats the case, then it's on them and they should have been more upfront with the space exploration mechanics
I dont think they wanted to temper expectations because they felt like doing so would've hurt sales. I think they wanted peoples imagination on what the game could be to go wild. They intentionally held back a lot of information about the game prior to launch and used a ton of vague language, which in my opinion is deception by omission. Opinions on this will vary and people will disagree with me.
95% of what they said was extremely vague. Like "Theres endless content to explore. You will love exploration so much. Its so vast" etc. etc.. Versus a company like CIG that will do a 30min video talking about how the mining system is supposed to work. Thats what happened with no mans sky prior to launch. They boasted the crap out of no mans sky. Only difference is that there were blatant lies made with no mans sky.
There are other issues that players aren't happy with that wouldnt have been apparent beforehand that wasnt deceptive, such as the way the interface is designed and the amount of loading involved. I think a 1 hour stream of the game of doing a couple side missions and showing off various gameplay systems in raw unedited footage would've made things a lot clearer.
Definitely agree
I don't know I think Bethesda was pretty clear about it, and they basically explained how you should play and explore in the game.
this is what bethesda do all the time. They just ignore the hype people create by spresding bs info and it always backfires.
@@fadeeeed I mean that backfire is pretty much internet randos screaming into the wind. If this doesn't move boxes or subscriptions or sell or a good combination of the 3 it backfired. If it does overall sell well for a new franchise then it did not.
Odds are it will sell like mad and people who actually play the game and aren't devoted to twitter and other internet gossip sites wont even know or care about the hype that did not materialize. And masses likely will still be playing this game 10 years form now.
OH BOY I DO LOVE USING A MENU SCREEN 6 TIMES AND GOING THRU 2 LOADING SCREENS AND 4 CUTSCENES MINIMUM JUST TO LAND ON A NEW PLANET
On the repetition note... I managed to stumble on the same exact base on two different planets. It was a little jarring but also ok with me. Hopefully in the future modders will add to the stuff and location we find like this. More variety is never going to be a bad thing.
Thats it! That settles it for me. If Ant says the exploration is fun, from the prospective of a space sim veteran, I'm finally sold! Thanks Ant
also a space sim veteran. the exploration is indeed very fun and doesn't get boring. the cities look great too, so much detail and atmosphere. biggest difference with exploration is to have actual stuff, rewards, quests, can meet people with conversations, and not just find a slightly different terrain shape... and because you find stuff that makes you "do things" the boundaries are no issue. as OA said, that's only if you would force it.
you really just miss those 5-10minute flights, being replaced by fast travel, a bit like in Everspace.
The thing I don't like about the procedural planets is that I have yet to find a truly barren planet. Every time I think I've found one, I land on it and am immediately surrounded with points of interest like abandoned mines etc... I would much prefer it if 50% or more of the barren looking moons etc... were actually barren.
Yeah I heard this complaint in another review video. The seeding mechanism for point of interests in the procedural space seems "overdone". Too bad they don't have some kind of sliding dial for that one can adjust - or, if they were afraid people wouldn't explore to much, without immediate POIs - they could have come up with a way to let people know what to expect on certain uninhabited planets.
@@jamenta2 Yeah. Exploration isn't really exploration if you're not the first to arrive, it's just a holiday. I think they're worried about people getting bored or complaining that half the planets they land on have "literally nothing to do omg" etc... Some of us, however, just want to find an empty, barren moon and build a base on it. It's a relatively minor complaint I guess, but it's legitimate.
That's a fair complaint, but I just want to point out that the systems in the game are called the "settled systems", meaning that it makes sense to find signs of settlement on the planets. While that may take away from the sense of aloneness that you get being the confirmed first to discover something like in ED, I'm sure the robustly moddable nature of BGS games will lead to plenty of mods that introduce what you are describing.
@@Willie_Dickins That's true. I keep forgetting about mods.
It feels like I’m watching space geographic
I have been playing over 40 hours now since day 1 lauch and love the game. Only thing I would add is a way to find shops easier in all cities and a way to bookmark a planet you want to get back to or at least a way to find planets or locations easier that I want to go back to. Otherwise I am enjoying the game like crazy. I look forward to spending many weekends playing the game. I also dont think im close to the end of the main story yet because I have definitly been side tracked for at least 20 hours of the game on amazing adventures after meeting random people that give me really good quests. One thing I love about the game is most of the quests I have done feel like they have real debth. Like I spend 1-3 hours on a quest often and all the characters have really good acting and speach. It makes the game really fun for me.
While I've not got the game yet, I have seen other CZcamsrs reviews, and one thing that has come up is that the locations you find (like the fracking site you found) are not permanent. Apparently (and I'm only going by what others have said here), you can return to a location if there hasn't been much time passed since you found it, but if a long time does pass, then the same planetary location will be different. Different landscape and different things in it.
I guess it helps with save-game bloat by not keeping everything you find, and randomly regenerating something new in the same location, but to me that would be immersion-breaking. Finding a pirate base in a crater one day, and then going back a few days later only to find it's now changed into a mountain range, just seems silly.
I’m pretty sure that when you land on a random location in a planet the game saves that landing spot and all the poi’s there but if the landing spot is gone then maybe the location will be different
I agree but I guess most players are not the kind of people who revisit places. Personally, I am. I'm curious how they will handle the area around our bases. I'll be annoyed if these keeps changing!
All that I can say is that I sat down intending to actually do something, and ended up hours later wandering around the surface of some planet in a cave, collecting junk. 10/10
A spelunker at heart I see.
Fun Advice: max ur difficulty on combat and change the food and medicine to harder. The items make a lot more sense and you'll get to learn the food items.
I just wish a loading screen and cut scene would be seemless. Like when you turn on FTL travel in games like ED, No man's sky or Space Engineers. You get blurry environment outside your spaceship like a warpfield or something and then boom, you're there. It could be a loading screen under the hood, but it would be much more immersive IMO
Yeah - it's weird they didn't bother to do something like that.
I just began playing Starfield when it dropped on the advanced release on Sept. 1. I have played Elite Dangerous (Horizon and Odyssey), Star Citizen, Skyrim V, and Elder Scrolls Online for a bunch of years. Yes, Starfield is “classic Bethesda.” The play is basically identical to Skyrim V and ESO. If one insists on the “immersion” of flying a ship to the surface of a planet or moon, then they would be better served by playing ED or SC, and not buying Starfield. Sort of like “Patient: Dr., when I do this it hurts,” “Doctor; then don’t do that!” Everyone should be playing the games they like, how they like, and understanding that not everyone will agree with their opinion.
I played all of the games mentioned. SF is the game where I feel like I am doing something meaningful. ED has potential - but wasted unfortunately. Gameplay in SF is relaxing and rewarding. I felt playing SC as this was my second job. Its not for everybody - but If you loved Mass Effect, Elder Scroll games - you will love that one.
That's all fine and dandy, but the game was specifically marketed as being a seamless "go anywhere" space exploration game, that's why there is so much criticism. So it's not enough to just say "then don't play it", that's not the point.
@@cytokinestorm3074it was never advertised as being seamless. Not once.
@@cytokinestorm3074"Dr, when i do this, it hurts...."
I agree the spaceship gameplay could have been more expansive (hopefully a dlc will address that), but besides that I've been loving it. Starfield offers a classic bethesda gameplay experience with all its freedoms and weirdness of random encounters and on top of that it also offers a large planetary exploration feature. Also I'm over 30 hours in and didn't have a single bug besides some occasional minor visual glitches.
My main gripe is that they reuse a lot. If you pick a random spot to land on, you will undoubtedly run into that problem.
Yes - there have been some reviewers who have said the same. But this seems like an area where the Starfield Modding community could really kick-in, and create much more randomized content - so that exploration in a procedurally generated part of a planet will have less predictability, then it apparently has had for some players. I have yet to play the game myself - so I can't testify to how predictable or narrow the procedural generation is.
@@jamenta2 I've seen about 3-6 repetitions on various sessions. I mean the first time you are like whoa, cool side distraction. Seeing it again and again though, you just loot and move on. I was very skeptical of what BGS would be able to do with the procedurally generated stuff. The modding community will definitely make this game better long term. As it stands now though, I don't think it deserves all the hype and high scores. It honestly feels like I'm playing something from the early 2000s. Definitely bummed that it's not really clicking with me.
@@PlayinWithGhosts Have you done any of the base building? I'm looking forward to that aspect of the game.
@@jamenta2 I have not. I did a lot of the ship building, but the space combat just feels really half baked. If you don't mind small regions with POIs, scattered about, you will probably have a decent time. It's definitely not a space sim. I feel like there is a really weird gameplay loop with Starfield. Dialogue, fast travel, load, brief combat, finish fetch quest, fast travel, load, fast travel, load again, and turn in. I'm surprised more reviewers didn't call this out. It's not for everyone, that's for sure.
if those quests and explorations things don't repeat on each freaking planet then I am all in. will play tomorrow :)
If we think back to NMS and how it started out, Starfield as loads of potential.
💯
It's Bethesda (and now Microsoft) we are talking about. They are never, ever, going to do 7+ years of absolutely FREE updates to Starfield. There is also the fact that things like loading screens and tile-based planet surfaces are technical limitations of the game engine and can't be "upgraded" to something like ED or NMS.
No Man's Sky engine had scalability; the Creation Engine 2 is already at its limits and would need serious refactoring. People need to understand how software tech works before assuming every game is scalable in the same way.
@@billywashere6965 so, not talking about scalability here - more in reference to how the games plays and people's perceptions. Same, I suppose, about people's perceptions of others' comments
Bethesda has a history of barely patching bugs, and you expect them to improve the game in a similar fashion to Hello Games? Considering they have many limitations that are engine imposed, it's not going to happen.
Starfield is everything I wanted elite dangerous to be, I did enjoy ED but ship travel was to much for me personally
It's almost everything I've wanted in a mass effect game. Mass Effect still edges out in the writing but SF really captures the exploration aspect of mass effect 1 and expands on it in a way I really enjo save for having an actual vehicle.
@@underleft My daughter (older) has been playing it too on my Xbox. She went out Yesterday to buy her own to be able to play this game more. Again very different experience she is having than my own.
Starfield with ED's ship freedom and less loading screens would be my perfect game. ED exploration is still way more fun to me than SF simply due to how free it is
I love starfield exploration, the big issue to me is the random spot/things to see are too regular in quantities
I would like more variance for exemple some landing spot with only two things to see other 8 etc ...
Good video. Agree with your points.
I'm thoroughly enjoying it so far, one of the best games I've ever played (and I've been playing video games since they were first invented). Have clocked up a little over 50 hours over the weekend, and am only a small percentage through the main storyline as it's just like any other Bethesda RPG, you get sidetracked......lots!!
I think the reviewers of this game have missed the point. As you say, it's NOT Elite, No Mans Sky, Or Star Citizen. It's not meant as a replacement for them. It doesn't do what THEY do. But it does draw on some of their functionality. It's a Bethesda RPG first and foremost, so it feels like Fallout 4 in how it hangs together, but it's not based on one single large map, but instead allows the exploration of huge numbers of maps, many of which contain large amounts of procedurally generated content.
I've been exploring barren planets heaps, and I haven't hit that invisible wall once yet, 'cause as you say, I'm not trying to, there's too much else to find. The loading screens don't bother me at all, as they were always in Fallout and Skyrim, and so they behave in the same way here. The cut scenes make it feel like a movie when I launch or hyperspace jump, giving me a few seconds down time from actually playing (and they look damn cool). On a slow hard drive this would probably be unpleasant, but on an SSD it's a few short seconds.
I've spent a lot of time base building so far (which can be challenging to figure out). Mining for resources and setting up shipping links to make those resources available at my other bases. I'm looking forward to doing more of this and creating a decent resource network. I've stolen and sold a few ships (not a massive money earner, but it's fun and exciting to do, to see if you might end up with a cool ship worth keeping).
If this game keeps my attention I think I could be playing it for months, and I'm someone who loses interest in even the best games and moves on after only a couple of weeks.
I think the hype train painted this game with the wrong brush. Gave many people, including me, the wrong impression. It's a Bethesda RPG. So if you go into it expecting something that hangs together like Fallout 4 (rather than expecting something that replaces ED or NMS), but with numerous gameplay features from those other space games, hundreds of procedurally generated worlds with lots of outposts and bases to find from each landing site, base building, ship building, planetary exploration and surveying. Then I think you'll thoroughly enjoy this game.
If you didn't like Skyrim or Fallout, then I don't think you'll like this.
Just my thoughts. Hopefully this helps someone who's currently on the fence about buying it. ;-)
Starfield really needs some mods to get the freedom of Elite Dangerous and it will be the best space game. Currently it's more like a story in the box simulator with a space theme.
I am surprised it wasn't designed to be playable on lower spec PCs also. Presumably that would have enabled them to sell more copies.
Thank you for keeping it spoiler-free 👍🏾. Currently enjoying the exploration elements immensely, so much so that I keep becoming distracted from the main storyline…
lol it has the worst story of all Bethesda games of all time. It's the cheesiest, lore breaking "multiverse" generic drab Bethesda has ever done.
I shall, when I eventually get the game, treat Starfield as a shooter looter with RPG elements, there seems to be enough exploring to be satisfying
Many reviews do say Starfield does a good job with the shooter looter aspect of the game. Oddly, not something I'm overwhelmingly interested in, but do enjoy. On the other hand, it also has base and ship building - which holds more interest for me. So a little bit of everything in a Space game, which is kinda nice.
I feel like they really lost opportunity on more immersive moments. Even something as simple as starting the ship up they should have given us some more cockpit controls That made us manually hit switches to take off from a planet. A sequence of cockpit prompts that you could either skip or complete. I thought that would have been cool.
You would need some variations on the cockpit controls - depending on ship size and configuration, to make launch more interesting and less repetitive. And then leaving the atmosphere and entering would have been definitely a fun and more immersive mechanic - than just a load screen. I'm not sure how one can simply say it's an RPG and therefore the immersion of flying your own spaceship from and to a planet doesn't fall into an RPG category. Surely roleplaying in a space game would mean, flying your own spaceship - actually flying it. On the other hand, Starfield appears to offer so many positives (based on the reviews and vids I've watched so far) - I'm willing to live with it - that this is what they decided to do. Maybe to attract the less "simulated" oriented gamers to play a space game. But it would have been nice to be given a choice of whether you want to fly your custom built ship hands-on - or just press a button and you're there.
I wonder how the big survival overhaul mods will deal with this game. One key concept that made those work in Skyrim and Fallout 4 (including Bethesda's own implementation) was disabling fast travel, so you were forced to deal with the dangers of the road and the elements. But with Starfield that's going to be impossible, so how would one execute that idea of dangerous exploration, when the game is built around fast traveling as a main mode of traversal?
Lots to think about.
My idea, if any talented modder is reading: random space encounters. Make it so that every time you travel in space from one planet to another, there's a % chance of getting interrupted midway, spawning a combat encounter with space pirates where you'd need to outrun them, or defeat them, to proceed to your destination.
That'd add some danger to space "exploration".
For ground exploration, maybe disable menu fast travel and make it so that you need to physically reach your ship to fly off-planet. Then add the usual weather dangers, make it so that you need special equipment to explore a super cold planet for example, and overhaul oxygen management so that it is a finite resource. Things like that!
I be making outposts on moons just bc the higher mountains make a great overlook for my glass outpost modules
I never liked the idea of 'just dont use the fast travel'. If the feature is in the game and it makes it less fun then thats the game designers fault, not the players. We should not be making excuses for bad game design.
Fast travel makes the game more fun, not less. ;)
Yup, it's why I rarely find Ubisoft games engaging. They give you these large open worlds but then have fast travel everywhere so you have no reason to explore the worlds.
Subjective, I personally don't want to spend time walking for kilometres on end, it's a time sink honestly.
Well that's why most games with such distances to travel give you vehicles. @@Ben21756
Bethesda should have given the players an option to either fly in space or fast travel, but they didn't. The same with the performance. They didn't give players an option between 60 fps or 30 fps. Even if traveling in space would've have been boring and time consuming the option to do it should've been there.
The game is limited by the game engine. That`s why they only allow you to travel by foot, a vehicle or a spaceship would have revealed how narrow the "zone" is. It certainly will be an interesting game for those who have a lot of time on their hands.
They're saving it for DLC. Mark my words. If you can have a horse in Skyrim and Oblivion you can have a rover in Starfield. Planet maps are comparable size to those.
I've been walking around on pluto today and the tile size seems to be around 5 km² which is pretty large and I did wish I had a hover bike or something.
the engine that gamers and everyone with minimal known said that they need to change it after FALLOUT 4 (bugs, limitations...)
i swear if they make TES6 with that shit im not buying (big TES fan here)
The game is improved by the game engine.
@@bhorin8874 They will.
Im really glad the game generates uilnique locations in every tile.
Some of these places are huge! I found a cave that was so expansive that it took me qbout 10 min to navigate and even came out in a diff location.
It feels weird to me though that there are so many POI on otherwise barren planets. I feel they could tone it down a bit depending on system population size
Starfield looks like a lot of fun! I remember in E:D you couldn't walk from your cockpit to the ground outside and everyone lost their damn minds about it, but the same mechanics in Starfield it doesn't seem to bother anyone. Looks like space game fans have mellowed out, lol.